The One That Got Away

by Jennifer Palgrave

  Apparently for Lauren’s benefit, Brett said a little about the proposed purchase, which the men planned to inspect again the following morning. ‘You’ll have heard of all the Silicon Valley billionaires buying up property around Queenstown. Their private jets are just large enough to fly direct from LA in case of trouble at home. I think the Wairarapa is the coming place. Queenstown has the natural beauty, but it’s being overrun and it’s far from any cultural centres. Of course,’ he laughed derisively, ‘they haven’t taken the great Alpine fault line into account when they’ve been building their bunkers.’ He speared a piece of asparagus and swallowed it with relish.

  Lauren countered, ‘You do know about the 1855 Wairarapa earthquake, the one that gave Wellington plenty of shoreline to build on?’ She took a sip of her wine, looked at him over the top of the glass.

  Brett laughed again. ‘I’m not planning to build a bunker. Nowhere is completely safe, but this is nice countryside, close to the capital and reminds me of the farming country I grew up in. But New South Wales is just too damned hot now and there’s always the bushfire risk.’

  Darya had set down her glass of wine. ‘Brett, you didn’t tell me about earthquakes.’ With that, in a truth is stranger than fiction moment, there was a sudden bang as if a truck had crashed into the house. The crystal glasses tinkled and the chandelier swayed as the room shook. Brett clapped his hands and the other men were struggling to look cool. Darya shrieked loudly and dived under the table.

  The room settled. Lauren was astonished; she was used to earthquakes. Darya crawled out, clutched her chair as she stood, and sat down heavily. Her face was chalk-white and she had balled her hands into fists. Her voice was unsteady. ‘I have lived too close to warfare. I distrust unexpected noise and heavings.’ She picked up her glass and took a long draught. ‘Please let us carry on.’

  Lauren’s phone beeped. ‘GeoNet says that was a 4.3, centred north of Masterton.’ She just stopped herself from saying, ‘No big deal,’ instead said, ‘There should be no damage or aftershocks.’

  The earthquake loosened tongues. Darya’s wine was drained and her glass refilled, Kevin and Jason fortified themselves with more wine, and the conversation turned to politics. No-one in the room apart from Lauren had a good opinion of the new government. Kevin said it wouldn’t last. ‘Winston will bring it down. He doesn’t see eye to eye with Jacinda on much.’

  Lauren interjected. ‘He did say that capitalism is not working.’ The men all looked at her and then at one another, and smirked. They didn’t bother to counter it. Darya said, ‘You should try communism. That certainly does not work, in my experience.’

  Kevin went on. ‘You can be sure there are tensions within that the public doesn’t know about, and then one day it will crack.’

  ‘Like Lange and Douglas?’ said Lauren.

  There was a pause. Kevin looked startled, and Brett said, ‘That of course was a very long time ago.’ He changed the subject, passed a bowl of trifle to Lauren, and beckoned to the hovering waiter to pour more wine.

  Lauren was astonished when Darya suggested she and Lauren retire after dessert while the men sat over their port. People still did this? She went along with it, noticing that Kevin in particular already seemed the worse for wear and wasn’t improved by alcohol. He and his offsider may not have been tasting wine with them earlier in the day, but they were certainly off somewhere drinking.

  Alone with Lauren, Darya reverted to her usual persona: elegant, imperturbable. Lauren ventured, ‘I’m sorry the earthquake was so upsetting for you.’

  ‘It is not good when buildings shake, and sounds are like the noises of warfare. I have survived such times and have no wish to experience them again. I will not let anything destroy my life with Brett.’

  Lauren was startled by her intensity. She chose to change the subject and until they were joined by the others, they chatted about opera performances Darya had attended.

  It seemed a long evening. Making conversation with a group of strangers she was wary of was hard work. She wondered again about Brett. It was extraordinary that Kevin had turned up here, but Brett’s explanation seemed reasonable enough. She couldn’t imagine them as buddies: Brett as the student she knew was overly pleased with himself, but he did have some cause. He was good-looking and very bright. Whereas she found it hard to imagine how Kevin had appealed to enough people to elect him. The party machine, she guessed. She was glad he hadn’t recognised her.

  The moment Lauren climbed into bed she fell deeply asleep. She woke suddenly, disturbed by a crash in the corridor outside her room. Her reading light was still on. Completely disoriented, she took a moment to remember where she was. Now she heard voices – Kevin and Brett. Kevin was apologising for something. He still sounded drunk. She tuned in. He’d fallen over a chair in the hall. The chair and he had gone down in a tangle and Brett had come out of his room to see what was going on. He wasn’t mollified by Kevin’s apology. Lauren thought he’d probably been woken up too. She looked at her phone. It was two thirty. She couldn’t imagine why Kevin was wandering about. Apparently neither could Brett. He wasn’t whispering, no doubt assuming everyone else was still sleeping. She heard Kevin again.

  ‘If you must know, I’m worried. God knows what that fucking woman’s got on us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Lauren hadn’t heard Brett sound icy before.

  Kevin’s voice rose. ‘You know what I’m talking about. That Rowan Wisbech. Didn’t you listen to that Radio New Zealand link I sent you? I’m sure she knows about us.’

  ‘Kevin, keep your voice down and come into the study. You’ll wake everybody.’

  The voices retreated. Lauren was wide awake now. Brett. And Kevin. She’d speculated that Brett could have been involved but hadn’t quite believed it. Here was the proof. So much for that bright charming student! Her breathing had changed. It was shallow and her heart was pounding. She shut her eyes, took three deep breaths and calmed herself. She wanted to hear the rest of the conversation. Dare she? Even as she wrestled with herself, she slipped out of bed, made her way across the room and cautiously turned her door handle.

  It was dark in the hall but she could see a sliver of light coming from the study where the door was just slightly open. She padded down the corridor towards it, keeping to the sides where boards were less likely to creak, an old trick she had learnt as a teenager coming home late. She leant against the wall next to the door and could hear the voices again.

  ‘I tell you, she’s talked to all those damn women around at the time. Stupid bitches most of them. Up themselves. Half of them dykes, I reckon.’

  ‘Kevin, you’re enlarging on this quite unnecessarily. What you need to realise is that nothing happened–nothing happened, remember.’

  There was a pause then something between a cough, a snort and a sob from Kevin. His words were still slurred. ‘I might have said something to–’ It sounded like ‘juth’.

  ‘Juth?’

  ‘Judith.’ Now he enunciated clearly. ‘Ju-dith But-ler.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘MP I had a fling with. Kept it secret at the time.’

  Another pause, then venomous: ‘You stupid little bastard. Look, it’s an outside chance that this historian is onto you. But if she is, I’ll tell you this, man, you’re on your own.’

  No pause at all and Kevin raised his voice again. ‘Oh no, I’m not, you buggers might think you can keep your hands clean but I know who egged me on, I know who helped me work out how to do it. And little thanks I got for it in the end, after all the promises. I tell you, Brett Wilson, if I go down you’re going down with me.’

  A chair scraped. ‘Oh no,’ thought Lauren, ‘he’s coming out.’ A lurch and a muttered oath. She forgot about creaking floorboards and fled down the hall to her room, wrenched open the door, flung herself onto her bed and pulled up the covers. She heard them out in the hall.

  ‘Go to bed now, Kevin.’ Brett’s voice. Uneven footsteps sounded outsi
de her room and receded along the hallway. Then more footsteps. Past the master bedroom, coming towards her room. A pause. She froze, her door was still slightly ajar and her reading light still on.

  ‘Lauren?’ It was Brett’s voice. She said nothing. She heard him push the door further open, advance a step. ‘Lauren?’ She kept her eyes shut, kept breathing. He stood. It was a very long moment. Then he walked away and she heard him open the door to his bedroom. She’d better not turn that light off, in case he came to check. Surprisingly, it was her last thought before sleep took her again.

  Lauren slept late after the previous night’s disturbance. When she woke she was quickly alert, shaken by what she’d overheard, keen to leave, keen to get back again to Phyl, to Ro, to Deirdre. The house was quiet so she showered, dressed and went into the kitchen, steeling herself to stay polite to Brett and Kevin. It was a relief to find Darya alone. She was sitting there nursing a coffee. ‘Good morning, do you eat breakfast?’

  Lauren was surprised by the question but looking at Darya’s slim figure, thought it might be maintained at some cost. ‘I usually do,’ she said. She felt sickish and thought that this morning wasn’t very usual. Too many revelations in the middle of the night.

  Darya gestured towards the bench. On it were a couple of opened packets of cereal, some spilled, bottles of milk with lids off, no bread to be seen but a smell of burnt toast. ‘The men have gone out to look at a piece of land, they put out some breakfast things and left them there, so help yourself. Would you like a coffee?’

  ‘Yes please.’ Lauren found some muesli, added milk and a small banana and sat down. She took slow mouthfuls while Darya busied herself with the coffee machine, making herself a second cup at the same time. She spoke in her usual slightly formal manner. ‘Brett thinks it would be helpful for our residency if we make some donations. I thought of opera or ballet. Do you have some connections?’

  Lauren had been wondering what Darya would think if she knew Brett might have connived at attempted murder. Would Darya stay in New Zealand, if Brett were in prison?

  Darya was looking at her. ‘Lauren?’

  Lauren wrenched her thoughts away from plots and tried to attend to Darya. She thought of her friend Megan who worked for the Wellington Festival. ‘Do you know of the International Festival of the Arts held in Wellington every two years? The next one is coming up in February. I do know someone involved in the festival management; they’re always desperate for sponsorship. It might be too late, though, the programme is out soon.’

  ‘That is the kind of thing, perhaps you could put me in touch. I cannot imagine they would turn down offers even this late.’

  ‘They do have patrons, platinum, gold, silver and so on; that might still be available.’

  ‘No,’ Darya said, ‘we were thinking of something bigger, a named event. But give me your friend’s details and I will contact her.’

  Lauren thought that she might have created a headache for Megan. ‘There are other forms of sponsorship, not just the arts. I’m sure Rape Crisis or Women’s Refuge would be able to come up with something in a hurry.’

  Darya scowled. ‘That’s not where I’d put our money. Women should be able to fend for themselves, not go running off when they run into a spot of trouble.’

  It flashed through Lauren’s mind that Brett as a student had been shaping up to be exactly the kind of man women’s refuges were set up to provide escape from. And what she’d heard in the night suggested that he’d stop at nothing, if something was in his way. Darya might see herself as made of sterner stuff, but perhaps this was just a front. How could she raise the issue?

  ‘Brett has quite a temper,’ she said. ‘I was very grateful that you managed to persuade him not to land in the fog yesterday. I was starting to feel very alarmed.’

  ‘You have to know how to manage men,’ said Darya.

  ‘Some men don’t react well to being managed. I’m hesitant to say this, but there was talk about Brett when we were at Cambridge. I heard that he punched one of his girlfriends, and there were rumours of other incidents.’

  Darya interrupted. ‘Oh, English girls! You don’t mess with a Ukrainian. He tried something on me once and I pulled a gun on him. No trouble since then.’

  ‘A gun?’ Lauren stared at Darya. ‘How did you come to have a gun?’

  ‘My little handbag gun.’ Darya reached over and patted her handbag lying on the kitchen table.

  Lauren swallowed. ‘You do know that you can’t carry those weapons in New Zealand? You surprise me.’

  Darya smiled. ‘I left it in London. Brett said we must be “squeaky clean” here, we want to buy our land.’ She rose. ‘You will excuse me. I must go out for a while. I am going to the village to interview a housekeeper. Please amuse yourself. I will be back by eleven, and that will be in time to get you to the midday train.’

  Lauren was pleased to be left alone, there was so much to think about. She sat slumped with elbows on the table, head in her hands. Clearly, Brett was involved in the plot to kill Lange. Even if Kevin prepared and delivered the poison, Brett and possibly others helped to hatch the plot. And Kevin had expected to be handsomely rewarded. He must have chickened out when the poison only made Lange ill and the police interviewed him. Kevin was really unlucky that Dr Waddell had tested for aconite. One thing was clear: Kevin had a lucky escape and it would have been foolish for him to make further attempts.

  But what now? She chewed a fingernail as she thought. Kevin had threatened to dob Brett in if he was exposed and more worryingly, he clearly had it in for Ro. It would not take long for them to find a connection between Ro and herself…or would it? She couldn’t think how, but it made her uneasy.

  An idea that had occurred to her the afternoon before came back. At least she could try to get further information to pin down Brett’s involvement. The old passports she’d seen would show her the dates he entered and left New Zealand in the eighties.

  She stood up, left the kitchen and walked towards the study door, which was open. Then she stopped, better look around first. She was sure the house was empty, but she walked past all the bedrooms, then through the living areas, out onto the terrace, back through the hallway and out the front door. Rural sounds floated by, cows chomping grass and belching, a dog barking in the distance, faint traffic from the highway. All clear, she left the front door open as she went inside so that she would hear any car returning. She went quickly into the study, closing the door behind her. The facing door into the living room was open and she left it like that–an escape route could be useful.

  She sat down at the imposing desk and opened the top drawer. Three passports with their top corners clipped diagonally to show they had expired. She opened each and put them in date order. The oldest was an Australian one stemming from Brett’s student days and she quickly skipped through the multiple entry and exit stamps for Australia, various European countries which he must have visited over the breaks, and a couple of later stamps bearing American insignia.

  The middle one, a British passport, took her into the eighties and she quickly spotted some New Zealand stamps. She rifled through the drawer, found pen and scrap paper and began to work her way through, noting down the dates of six or seven entries and exits. There were lots of stamps from other countries, too: mainly Australia, the United States, Britain and other European countries. Brett had travelled very widely. There were also stamps for South Africa, Kenya, Cayman Islands, Channel Islands, Bahamas, Tonga. Were these all holidays? Sun and beaches? Big game hunting? Who knew. She suspected it was more about countries offering tax havens.

  She pocketed the paper with the New Zealand dates on it and put the two older passports away. Then quickly flicked through the last one which ran from the mid-nineties onwards. It looked as if there were one or two trips to New Zealand but not as many as in the eighties. Some to Russia and Eastern Europe. Quite the international traveller, thought Lauren.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Brett’s
voice was at her shoulder. Lauren jumped up, dropping the passport. She turned to face him. He looked angry. She must have been too absorbed to hear him arrive. ‘You startled me! I just–I just came in’–there was scarcely time to think–‘to look for a pen and writing paper. Darya’s gone to Martinborough and I thought I’d make a start on my end-of-year letters.’ She was recovering herself now and the words was flowing more easily. ‘But I didn’t find what I was looking for.’ She pulled out a drawer, picked up a pile of stationery and waved it at him. ‘It’s all monogrammed, I couldn’t use that.

  ‘And apologies, I couldn’t resist looking at all the fabulous stamps you’ve got in your passport.’ She scooped it off the floor, then opened the top drawer. ‘Here’s your others, remember? You slipped them in here yesterday. I was going to mention them to you, you should keep them somewhere safer.’

  Brett looked at her narrowly, but seemed mollified. He allowed her to push the passports into his hand. As his fingers closed around them, he said, ‘You want to be careful, you don’t want to get a reputation for poking around in other people’s studies.’

  ‘I do apologise. But I can’t imagine you’ve got anything here you want to hide.’ The piece of scrap paper was burning a hole in her pocket. She pinned a cheerful smile on her face and moved towards the living area. ‘Is Darya back too? She said she’d get me to the midday train, I should ask her when I need to be packed.’

  She was aware of him behind her, she felt the back of her neck prickling, but he said nothing more. Darya wasn’t back, but Lauren took the opportunity to go to her bedroom. She shut the door, sat on the bed and tried to steady herself. After a few minutes, she stood up and began to pack her bag. She didn’t relax until she had said polite farewells, and Darya had left her at the station.